Crowns of Rust (Kingdoms of Sand Book 2)

by Daniel Arenson

  "And died with you," Shefael repeated, softer now. "Three legions had come upon our city. I could not have defeated them, not with all my men here. And even if, by a miracle, Yohanan and I could have cast back Porcia's forces, her brother waited in the west, leading three more legions. No, Epher. This war could never have been won. So I made the only deal I could make."

  "A deal that cost your brother's life." Epher would not tear his stare away. "You let Porcia kill Yohanan and his warriors—nearly kill me too. You sold our very kingdom. You let my father die on the cross. All so you could keep your ass on this throne—a throne you made a mockery of."

  Shefael's face flushed a deeper shade of crimson. He pointed at Epher, finger shaking. "You'll see, Epher, that I'm still a king. I can have you thrown into the dungeon for your insolence."

  Epher snorted. "Better insolence than treachery. I do not recognize your claim to this throne. I do not recognize that we have a throne anymore—just a chair. Just a chair for a drunken fool."

  "Fool!" Olive repeated and spat at Shefael's feet. "Fool, fool. Go away, fool."

  The palace guards stepped forward again, reaching toward Epher. The legionaries raised their weapons. Epher snarled, prepared to grab a javelin or sword from a legionary and fight—fight Shefael like Yohanan had.

  But a voice rang through the hall, stopping him cold.

  "Enough! Epher, he's right. Shefael did the right thing."

  They turned around. Both cousins' eyes widened. It was Shiloh who had spoken.

  "Mother," Epher whispered.

  She stood with hands on her hips. Her braid hung across her shoulder. She was a slender woman, quick and graceful as a gazelle, but standing here, she seemed as fierce as a lioness.

  "Your cousin did the right thing, Epher," she repeated. "He made a horrible choice. The only choice he could make. The choice that saved our lives. Your father died, Epher, because he chose to fight. Yohanan died because he chose to fight. Benshalom died because he chose to fight. Shefael surrendered, and so my firstborn son now lives."

  "I live because of Olive." Epher took hold of the redheaded woman's hand. She cooed and laid her head against his shoulder. "She's the one who saved me from the battle."

  Shiloh's face hardened. "And if Shefael had not opened the gates of the city, do you think that you and Olive would still live? No, son. The Empire would do to us what it did to Leer. It would smash every wall, every tower, every house. It would slay every man, woman, and child. Zohar would not have become a province of Aelar. It would have become a wasteland, mere desolation where once cities had stood. Your father was brave, Epher, and I loved him dearly, and I will never stop loving him. But he chose death, and Shefael chose life."

  Epher narrowed his eyes, staring at his mother, and it was as if he didn't recognize her. It was the same Shiloh on the surface—the same brown eyes, same braid, same cotton dress. But something had changed in her. There was a new pain to Shiloh Sela, but a new strength too.

  Epher turned away. He couldn't stand to be here. Not a minute longer. His father—dead. Yohanan and Benshalom and all their forces—slaughtered outside the walls, himself the only survivor. Atalia and Koren—shipped off to slavery. Maya—missing. Ofeer—joined with the enemy. Tears threatened to fill Epher's eyes. He could find no air. He couldn't speak.

  He turned and marched out from the hall, leaving his cousin, his mother, and the legionaries behind. With a squeak, Olive hurried after him. The rest did not follow.

  He marched through the palace. As a child, Epher would run through these halls, playing with his siblings. They would visit Aunt Sifora, Queen of Zohar, every year for the fall harvest. The Sela children would fill these corridors and chambers with laughter, and Epher had spent many hours wrestling with Yohanan and Shefael, his older cousins, in the gardens. Now the laughter was gone. Now this was no longer a palace, not truly, but a great prison. Now Aunt Sifora was dead, now Shefael ruled as a puppet to Marcus Octavius, and all lay in ruin. His family. His kingdom. His life.

  "Epher," Olive said softly, hurrying to keep up with him. "Epher, go away? Olive go away?"

  Epher paused and turned toward her. They stood in a corridor between columns, arches rising above them. To the west, between the columns, spread a view of Beth Eloh. Thousands of brick homes, cemeteries, domes, silos, steeples, and workshops crowded the hills, and cobbled roads coiled between them like strands of thread, leaving barely any room for a few scattered palm and olive trees. The ancient city was three thousand years old, a source of lume, of pride, of light for all of Zohar, now a corpse for eagles to feed on.

  He looked back at Olive. She gazed at him with huge, frightened eyes. She was trembling, he noticed. Her face, beneath the mud that still covered her, was pale.

  "No, Olive." He took her hands in his. "You don't have to go away. I'd like you to stay here with me."

  "Stay," she whispered. She turned to look between the columns at the city, and her trembling increased. The legionaries at the gates had taken her bow and arrows, but she kept glancing over her back as if still seeking her weapons. She pulled one hand free and pointed at the city, and she began to chatter, gushing out nonsensical words like a baby just learning to talk.

  "You're scared," Epher said. "I know. Maybe you've never seen a city before, never seen houses, streets, walls. But I'm here with you. You saved my life twice already, first in the hills of Erez and then outside this city. I'm going to do whatever I can to protect you." He pulled a dry leaf from her hair. "I don't know where you come from, and I don't know what happened to you. But I'm going to help you. I'm not going away, and neither are you."

  He wasn't sure she could understand him, but perhaps she understood the tone more than the words. She pulled him into an embrace and laid her cheek against his shoulder.

  "Epher," she whispered. "Olive. Epher Olive."

  "Epher and Olive," he said.

  "Epher an Olive." She nodded, holding him close. "Epher an Olive."

  Holding her hand, Epher kept walking. He knew where to find the one he sought. He had spent enough hours in this palace to know. He walked down the corridor until he reached the palace's central tower. Here he climbed a spiraling staircase, moving between columns. With every iteration around the tower, he could see other views of the city. When he faced the north, he saw the Temple nearby, the only structure in Zohar larger than the palace, a building of white stone and gold. Like the palace, the Temple rose on the Mount of Cedars, a walled hill that formed an acropolis within Beth Eloh. The western view revealed domed houses leading toward the city's outer walls, and beyond them the sun setting over the remains of the battle. Facing south, he saw the wild hills where Olive had nursed him. When the staircase faced east, he saw the desert spreading into the distance.

  Finally, still holding Olive's hand, Epher reached the top of the tower. A dome rose here, as large as the villa on Pine Hill. A walkway surrounded it, ringed with pale columns capped with gold. He felt like an ant crawling along a crown upon a bald man's head.

  There she stood, staring eastward, the sandy wind fluttering her white robes. Avinasi. Bracelets jangled around the lumer's scrawny arms, and golden rings hung from her ears. The scent of myrrh wafted from her. She seemed ancient beyond measure, as old as this very city, and Epher had the strange feeling that she had been waiting for him.

  He approached her, fingers tingling, aching to grab a sword. "You sent her away."

  Slowly, Avinasi turned toward him. Her neck creaked. Her withered face twisted into a slight, knowing smile. The wind billowed her shawl, jangling the coins sewn along its hem.

  "Your sister has taken the path of light, son of Zohar," said the ancient lumer. "I did not send her on this path, merely illuminated her first step."

  "Where did Maya go?" Epher couldn't hide the anger in his voice. "Her letter talked of Luminosity." He grabbed the old woman's wrist. "What path did she take?"

  Avinasi raised an eyebrow, and her smile widened. She raised a hand,
the fingers tipped with nails like claws, and stroked his cheek. "So much rage in you. So much pain. So little light. You are a child of shadow, Epheriah Sela, son of Jerael. The darkness will continue to rise inside you, like bitumen bubbling up in a pit, as it rises across your land." Her fingers moved down, and her fingernails ran along his throat. "I fear for you, child. Twice already have you skirted death, but keep walking the shadowy path and no light will save you."

  He shoved her hand away. "Where is Maya?"

  "Beyond your reach. She must seek truths that can no longer be found in Zohar, not under the shadow of eagle wings. But she will return, son of Zohar, before the end. She will enter this city again. Whether you live to see her depends on the path you choose, a path of darkness or a path of luminescence."

  With that, Avinasi spun around and walked along the walkway, robes fluttering. The lumer seemed almost to hover, and within an instant, she vanished around the dome. Epher snorted out breath, the rage still inside him. He hurried after her.

  "Avinasi, stop!"

  Yet he could no longer see her. He ran along the walkway, racing around the dome until he came full circle, reaching Olive again. Avinasi was gone.

  "Avinasi go away," Olive said. She thought for a moment, then nodded. "Cunt."

  Epher nodded weakly. He stared between the columns toward the west. The sunlight was fading, and the stars emerged. The Dancer's Coin shone before him, the brightest star in the east, a lantern in the sky over the desert.

  Are you looking at that star now too, Maya? Can you see the stars wherever you are, Atalia and Koren? Do you still look to the sky, Ofeer, and do you think of us too?

  Epher did not know the answers to those questions, and the pain seemed too great to bear. His shoulders slumped.

  "Epher an Olive go away," Olive whispered and touched his cheek. Her hands were grimy, the nails bitten down to stubs, but her touch was far softer and more pleasant than Avinasi's.

  Epher nodded. They stepped off the roof, climbed downstairs, and Epher found one of the palace guestrooms—the room he would stay in as a child, visiting Beth Eloh with his family. Alcoves dotted the walls, some holding candles, others holding jugs of water. A bed lay by a window. At once, Olive lay down on the floor and yawned.

  "Bed," Epher said, pointing. "Sleep on the bed. I'll take the floor."

  She blinked up at him. "Bed?"

  He nodded. "Yes, there's only one. I'll find you your own room tomorrow. You can sleep here tonight."

  "Ur nim is Red," she said, nodding sagely. She climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged. "Olive an bed."

  "Olive in bed," he corrected her.

  She grabbed his hands, grinning, and tugged him onto the bed too. He stumbled over the edge and thumped onto the mattress.

  "Epher an Olive in bed," she said.

  He blinked. "God's beard, that was almost a proper sentence. Epher and Olive in bed."

  She nodded excitedly, hair bouncing. "Epher and Olive in bed. Avinasi go away." She yawned, lay down, and pulled him down beside her. "Bed. Bed."

  He had wanted to lie on the floor, not share the bed with her. When her body pressed against him, he realized how—under the layers of filth—she was still a fair young woman. He didn't need those feelings in his life now. He had vowed not to feel anything for another woman, not after what had happened with Claudia, not after—

  Olive kissed his cheek. "Bed," she whispered. She closed her eyes, cuddled against him, and slept.

  Epher sighed and stroked her tangled hair. "Goodnight, Olive."

  He held her in his arms, but he could not find sleep. Too many visions filled the darkness—visions of the dead outside the city, of his siblings in chains, of his father on a cross. The world seemed woven of shadows, and he could find no light. Is that what Avinasi had meant? That he would let grief, anger, and pain consume him?

  Then let Olive be my light, he thought, holding her against him. He kissed the top of her head, and she mumbled and stirred but did not wake. Let Olive guide me in the darkness as the Dancer's Coin guides travelers in the night. Let Olive be my desert dancer, my beacon in shadow.

  That star shone outside the window, and finally Epher slept, holding Olive in his arms.

  OFEER

  She stood at the stern of the Aquila Aureum, flagship of the Aelarian fleet, staring back toward the east, but she could no longer see Zohar. The water spread into all horizons.

  "Farewell," Ofeer whispered. "Farewell, Zohar, land of my mother."

  A sudden urge filled her to spit toward the east, to shake her fist, to laugh. She was finally free! Free from that land that had stifled her. Free from that house that had trapped her. Never more would Ofeer—the daughter of an Aelarian—be forced to live among the savages. Never more would she skulk along the port, drowning her misery in booze and sex and spice. Never more would she live among brutish Zoharites, with their beards and coarse clothes, barbarians who mocked her, who had never been her true people. That old land—the backward province that had crushed her soul—was gone forever from her life.

  Yes, Ofeer wanted to rejoice at leaving. She wanted to look away and never look back.

  And yet she could not.

  As she stared east, she remembered her tears of pain, but she also remembered joy, remembered light. She remembered herself from before her childhood, playing on the beach with her siblings. Restday meals around the table, feasting on fruits and breads, then playing mancala in candlelight. Harvest trips to Beth Eloh and songs in the halls of kings. Her mother hugging her. Epher teaching her to use a sword. Ofeer even missed Maya . . . a little.

  Tears stung her eyes, and Ofeer knuckled them away.

  "No," she whispered through clenched teeth. "No! They hated me. All of them hated me, and I was never one of them. Besides, it's too late to go back. Zohar is gone. My family is gone." She squared her shoulders. "I am now Ofeer of Aelar, nothing more."

  She spun away from the stern and walked across the deck. The Aquila Aureum was massive, a floating castle. The masts rose high, sails unfurled, dyed white with red stripes. Many sailors rushed about the polished deck, tugging ropes, turning winches, and climbing ladders. On the way to Zohar, the deck must have been crammed full of soldiers, but few legionaries stood here now; most had remained in Zohar, and Seneca had told her that many would remain there for years.

  Other ships sailed around them, and in their holds they held spoils from Zohar—gold, gemstones, artwork, and mostly slaves. Most of the ships had remained behind with their legionaries, their new home in Zohar's port, but even this skeleton fleet seemed massive to Ofeer—an entire floating city.

  When she leaned over the railing, Ofeer could see the ship's oars churning the water. The galley slaves were chained below the deck, buried within the ship. They would not see sunlight until the Aureum reached Aelar, eighteen days if the winds favored them and the sails gave them extra speed. As Ofeer walked, she tried to count the oars, but she kept losing count.

  He holds one of those oars. Her breath shuddered. He's there, beneath my feet, right now.

  The pain was too great. Ofeer shoved the thought aside. So what? Who cared if he was there? That no longer mattered. That was no longer her family. Her fingers shook, and she hated that those people still had power over her. She wouldn't let the Sela family ruin this for her—her dream, finally sailing to Aelar. She wouldn't let that thought, that pain below the deck, spoil the culmination of all her work.

  She made her way past an iron winch that held the anchor on a chain, past the central mast, and around a wooden tower that rose thrice her height, topped with battlements for archers. She reached the prow, climbed three steps, and leaned across the nose of the ship. An iron figurehead thrust forward, shaped as an eagle's head, a weapon to ram into enemy ships.

  Zohar never had enemy ships, Ofeer thought. Not since the war nineteen years ago, when Marcus Octavius—my real father—sank them all. Back when he took Zohar's island, back when he slept with my mother, when
he made me.

  Ofeer cringed. Mother's words returned to her, the last words the woman had spoken to her.

  Marcus Octavius, then a general in the legions, sank our fleet, invaded our island of Cadom. He took your brothers captive, Ofeer. He would have killed them had I not let him into my bed.

  Ofeer found herself trembling. She had known for years that Jerael wasn't her father, that her father was an Aelarian. Shiloh had always refused to reveal more details. Ofeer had always imagined that her father was a handsome sailor, perhaps a wealthy merchant, that he had wooed Shiloh, that Shiloh had succumbed to his charms for a night of infidelity.

  But he wasn't some sailor or merchant, Ofeer thought. He was Marcus Octavius, Emperor of Aelar. And he didn't woo my mother.

  Ofeer clenched her fists and lowered her head. She had not wanted to hear at first, had ignored Mother's words until Taeer the lumer had confirmed them. Now the horror of it shook her body.

  I was not created on a night of passion. I was created with brutality, with terror, with war.

  She took a shuddering breath, staring northwest across the sea. Somewhere, many days of sailing away, Aelar waited. The land she had so often dreamed of, the land from the fairy tales, the songs. A land of white towers, of lords and ladies in silk, of beautiful music, of art, of civilization. A land so unlike crude Zohar. A land where, in her dreams, her father was a wise, handsome lord.

  The land that slew thousands in Gefen, Ofeer thought. The land that spawned Seneca, a man who nailed Jerael to a cross and fucked me to the sounds of dying groans. The land of Marcus Octavius, a man who kidnapped my brothers and raped my mother. Her eyes teared up.

  "What am I doing?" Ofeer whispered, clasping her hands so tightly they ached. "Why am I here?"

  A hand touched her shoulder, and Ofeer jumped. She spun around to see Seneca standing on the deck.

  "You startled me," she said.